Micro-Animations With Text Blocks

(adapted from Flash 5 by Bill Sanders and used with his permission)

Objectives:

• to make changes to text blocks using keyframes
• to define and save color swatches
• to use tracking in the Character Panel to make changes frame by frame

Basics:

• text blocks are objects in Flash
• changing the tracking frame by frame represents real animation inbetweening
• keyframes are critical to making changes to any text within a text block
• the Info and Transform Panels can be used to make changes to the text block
• the Free Transform Tool found in the Toolbox can be used to manipulate the text block.
• rotated, skewed, scaled and repositioned text blocks go through all the stages of the tweening motion.
• changes to font, color and alpha (transparency) do not go through the stages of the tweening motion.

Story Line:

• a truck and trailer (Trailer) will be moving forward and and come in contact with a wall
• the truck and trailer will be crushed against the wall
• after impact the truck and trailer will spring back to original form
• on the return trip the truck and trailer will appear to be a mirror image of itself

Exercise:

a) Layers

• two layers will be used in the movie and will be labeled as indicated below
• the movie will be 50 frames in length
• the color codes for this movie include: #FFCC00, # FF66FF and #6B0055

b) The Background Layer

• select the Rectangle Tool and in the Properties Panel set the stroke to 10-point and the Fill Color Well to dark purple and the Stroke Color Well to light purple.
• draw a rectangle covering the entire stage
• lock the layer

c) The Trailer Layer

• select the Text tool from the Toolbox
• in the text Tool Properties Panel select the Arial font with a point size of 30, the color to yellow , Bold and set the Tracking Control to 9
• type the words "Trailer-Cab" with no spaces between the words
• position the text block at Y = 148 and the letter "T" at the edge of the purple part of the stage on the left hand side (see frame 1 below)

• insert a keyframe at frame 16
• drag the text block so that the "b" in "Cab" just touches the purple part of the stage on the right hand side at Y = 148
• double click on frame 1 and insert a Motion tween
• to make changes within the text block
  • insert a keyframe at frame 17
  • select the text Tool and click on the text block
  • select all the text within the text block
  • use the slider in the Tracking Control and change the tracking value to 4
  • click on the Black arrow and select the text block
  • use the arrow keys and move the text block so that the "b" in "Cab" just touches the purple part of the stage on the right hand side at Y = 148
• use the above procedure and the information provided in the chart below to adjust the tracking in the indicated frames

select frame 27 and insert a keyframe select the Transform Panel in the Windows menu click on the Skew radio button and enter the value "180" into the right skew window click on frame 50 and insert a keyframe move the text off the screen on the left hand side at Y = 148 double click on frame 17 and insert a Motion tween test the movie

Truck Movie